One of the common agenda is a movement against the alarming rise in militant activities, law and order downslide and freewheeling retrenchment of public sector workers and employees, said opposition sources.

After months of formal and informal meetings with some left-leaning political parties, Awami League President Sheikh Hasina at a weekend programme made a strong plea for what she called an effective political alliance with pro-liberation forces.

"The Awami League calls for an alliance. Come and join us to unseat the autocratic government," Hasina told a seminar in the city Thursday evening.

"We have to root out all militant groups and establish a secular democracy and it's through a fresh united move," said the leader of the opposition, blaming the ruling coalition partner Jamaat-e-Islami for expanding "terror network across the country under protection of the four-party alliance government".

The AL call for forging a unity came at a time when several Marxist parties are on a desperate move for unification, the opposition sources said.

The Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and Workers' Party (WP) had at least a dozen meetings over the last one year to evolve agreed formula for the two socialist adherents to merge.

WP leader Rashed Khan Menon told The Daily Star yesterday that a rapprochement move was on and CPB leader Mujahidul Islam Selim hoped both parties would be able to reach a consensus on unification.

As one of the oldest political parties in Bangladesh and an inheritor of communist movement in the Indian subcontinent, the CPB started dialogues with other left-leaning parties to make a common ground, hopeful of creating an impact on future politics.

The CPB had meetings with a faction led by Hasanul Haq Inu of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) and Ahmedul Kabir-led Gonatantri Party on Thursday to work out some common issues to wage simultaneous movements.

It had also sent a six-point agenda to the AL on August 10, asking it to agree on the issues like reviving the four original state principles, trying war criminals, banning Jamaat politics, waging movement against the US-led war and gas export and protesting divestment of state-owned enterprises and layoffs.

But the AL did not hold any meeting in its party forum yet over the issues, sources said.

About the gas issue, Menon said the AL's stand on gas export was not solid enough like the leftists'. He referred to Hasina's firm utterance at last week's Paltan rally against any government 'ploy' to export gas and her softened stance on the issue during a meeting with the US ambassador in Dhaka the following day.

About Hasina's call for the alliance, her Political Secretary Saber Hossain Chowdhury told The Daily Star yesterday that it was a common feeling of pro-liberation parties that the rise in militant activities and law and order nosedive had pushed people into helplessness.

The AL did not rule out the possibility of any electoral alliance among the AL and other like-minded parties provided it serves greater interests, said Saber.

He, talking about the ideological difference between the AL and the communists, particularly on the US-related issues and revival of socialism as a state principle, said, "Ideologies will not be any major roadblock to political unity as long as we wage issue-based movements."

CPB leader Selim said his party would be continuing dialogues with other political parties as "together we've to stave off aggression of imperialists and fundamentalists".

But Menon said it was too early to comment on the possibility of an electoral alliance with the AL, but remarked, "a lot depends on how we work out common issues in days to come".

"For the time being, what we can do is make a convergence of all our action programmes on specific issues."

"We must go ahead, taking three key areas -- fundamentalism, crime and deterioration of law and order -- as priorities," said Menon.